Justice Committee on Oct. 17th, 2006

[The Chair, Conservative, Art Hanger]

They are. In that case, Mr. Ménard is ahead of you.

Go ahead, Mr. Ménard, with one question, please.

[Serge Ménard, Bloc, Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC]

Thank you. After hearing Mr. Thompson, I would still like to ask you one basic question. My introduction will be far shorter than his.

First of all, I would put a lot more stock in his arguments about police officers', probation officers' and victims' demands if he applied the same reasoning to firearms control. The police, victims, doctors, basically everyone wants the registry maintained. And yet, they want it eliminated. Yes, there are studies. We asked for studies at the outset of the committee's deliberations. I will read just 10 lines from the long report we received.

After decades of relatively steady increases, Canada's overall crime rate began to drop significantly in the early 1990s. From 1991 to 2004, crimes reported by police forces dropped by a little over 22 per cent, or by an average of 1.6 per cent per year. The drop in crime was particularly sharp in the 1990s. From 1991 to 2000 alone, the rate dropped by nearly 26 per cent, or an average of a little over 2 per cent per year. The downward trend in the overall crime rate was followed by a period of stability between 2000 and 2002, then a notable increase of 6 per cent in 2003, largely due to the increase in crimes against property. The slight decrease of 1 per cent posted in 2004 appears to indicate a return to the downward trend that started early in the decade.

That is what you find out when you take the trouble of consulting Juristat, which very few people do. Crime is tracked daily in Canada through the compilation of police reports. Most people do not know that. They find out about crime through the newspapers they read everyday and by watching television. And I suspect that to a large extent, anglophones in Canada are informed about crime by American television, which reports on all of the horrors that occur in the United States, where the murder rate, do not forget, is three times higher than Canada's. So the public perception is that...

[The Chair, Conservative, Art Hanger]

Mr. Ménard, ask your question.

[Serge Ménard, Bloc, Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC]

I will ask my question. Do you expect politicians to make decisions that will please an electorate that is clearly ill informed, or to do their job based on reality, even if there is a political price to be paid?

[The Chair, Conservative, Art Hanger]

Thank you, Mr. Ménard.

Would someone like to reply to Mr. Ménard's point?

Mr. Watts.

[Derek Lee, Liberal, Scarborough—Rouge River, ON]

I think the philosopher Edmund Burke tried to do that a couple of hundred years ago, but maybe Mr. Watts can improve on it.

[Bob Watts]

Just to reiterate the point that Richard and I have tried to make a number of times, the statistical information is not available. As a federal government you may be able to talk to your provincial counterparts and get it, but we question whether it's really available there either. We need to do some joint research and we need to look at some of the best practices out there. There are some great programs. One of them is sitting right beside us, but there are other programs in the country looking at the question of restorative justice. We need to inform ourselves.

I don't know, Mr. Ménard; your question is so huge, and I don't think there's any easy answer to it. But I think there would be some satisfaction for all of us in using the best information available to make the best decision, and not just a gut reaction. As a parliamentary committee, you have at your disposal some of the tools. Bring them to bear on this; let's work together.

[The Chair, Conservative, Art Hanger]

Thank you, Mr. Watts.

Mr. Thompson, I know you wanted some clarification from Mr. Battista.

[Myron Thompson, Conservative, Wild Rose, AB]

Yes, but there's one thing I want to clarify.

I supported conditional sentencing in the beginning, but I was also informed that I wouldn't have to worry about it pertaining to violent types of criminal, and it certainly has gone that way. That was the disappointment.

In my understanding, if Bill C-9 becomes law, you're saying, sir, that judges have then lost their ability to determine whether this should be through indictment or summary—

[Giuseppe Battista]

Not judges, but prosecutors.

[Myron Thompson, Conservative, Wild Rose, AB]

Did you say judges have lost that ability?

[Giuseppe Battista]

They don't have it. The decision to prosecute by way of indictment or by way of summary conviction is a prosecutorial decision. The point that was made by our colleague earlier is that what this law will do is shift the power to the prosecutor in deciding whether this person will eventually be able to argue before a judge for a conditional sentence.

[Myron Thompson, Conservative, Wild Rose, AB]

Isn't that presently the case, though?

[Giuseppe Battista]

What do you mean?

[Myron Thompson, Conservative, Wild Rose, AB]

This is where I'm having a problem. To me, the crown prosecutors and the police investigators discuss the situation, and then they present to the judge whether it should be an indictment or summary conviction. Is that correct?

[Giuseppe Battista]

Yes, but the point is this. When people are charged in Canada, they can be charged by way of summary conviction or by way of indictment. If they're charged by way of summary conviction for the same offence—assault, for example, by summary conviction—or by indictment.... If there's an offence that's punishable by ten years of imprisonment that can be prosecuted by way of summary conviction or by way of indictment, the prosecutor makes that decision. Usually they make that decision based on the person's prior history, based on the specific facts of the case, and based on what they think an appropriate sentence may be in the long run.

[Myron Thompson, Conservative, Wild Rose, AB]

But you're telling me that couldn't be the case, if this law were passed.

[Giuseppe Battista]

If the legislation says that for any offence that's punishable by ten years or more the judge no longer has the discretion to apply a conditional sentence, for example, in some cases, then the prosecutor ultimately has that decision, because if the prosecutor before charging says this person shouldn't go to jail but should get a conditional sentence, then they'll prosecute by way of summary conviction. So the decision is being made there, and not by the judge.

[Myron Thompson, Conservative, Wild Rose, AB]

Isn't it being made there now?

[Giuseppe Battista]

Yes, but for different reasons.

[The Chair, Conservative, Art Hanger]

Thank you, Mr. Thompson.

Mr. Brown has one point he wanted to make.

[Patrick Brown, Conservative, Barrie, ON]

It's just two pieces of information, Mr. Chair.

One, there was a question about the government's own cost estimates. That document is currently being translated and will be available in tomorrow's justice committee meeting and will be distributed.

Two, the report presented at the FPT justice ministers meeting that Mr. Comartin requested previously is not available to be distributed by the Government of Canada itself; it's also with our provincial governments. But committee members are free to seek it out, as this is provincial data as well.

[The Chair, Conservative, Art Hanger]

Thank you, Mr. Brown.

I would like to thank the witnesses for testifying before this committee. I think we had a very informative discussion. It's very much appreciated that you took the time to come and make this presentation. We're trusting that this dialogue will continue. The time of Bill C-9 will be very limited now, as far as further testimony is concerned, but we will be analyzing everything that's before us now. Thank you very much.

The meeting is adjourned.